


Coming Home

by AveAwan



Series: Growing Up Is Hard [2]
Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Also fair warning there's gonna be a lot more detail in the more erotic parts, But I wouldn't want you reading this if you were like, F/F, F/M, I'll be trying to keep it tasteful though, it's not really enough to be explicit, they're like 20 in this one, under 16 IG?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-08-22 19:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16604477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AveAwan/pseuds/AveAwan
Summary: On a long enough timeline, all happy endings are a lie.School isn't working out, there's nowhere else to go.It's time to come home.(ko-fi.com/aveawan)





	1. Do You Want To Tell Us Where You Are?

Not really, but I know I don’t have a choice.

“This is the ARBORAIL service to FAWNTON, our next stop is OLDHOLME.”

I’m on a train, obviously.

Because we’re going home.

**And Why Are We Going Home?**

You know why we’re going home. Two years in constant stress and misery. Two years half-starving or half-awake studying nothing I actually cared about. Two years of my life spent away from home. Two years of my life taken out by the riptide of time, never to be seen in motion again, only their corpse washing up on the beach to look forward to. Two long fucking years. Over now though; all over.

We’re going home.

“This is the ARBORAIL service to FAWNTON, this is OLDHOLME, alight here for services to NEWHOLME, our next stop is ASGORING.”

It never gets less surreal hearing places named after Dad. I had learned since travelling away from home that there was a lot more of them than I could ever have anticipated. Places where Dad had diverted rivers, destroyed armies, cleared forests, deeds of heroism from before the world was made peaceful. It was nearly impossible to reconcile the gentle, doting, dopey father that had raised me with the legendary hero that the rest of the world remembered only in founding myths. It made the world seem unreal when I first discovered it; now it was nothing but a piece of cognitive dissonance to handle on a daily basis. You can get used to anything.

“This is the ARBORAIL service to FAWNTON, this is ASGORING, our next stop is NIGHTWARREN.”

Nightwarren was the closest the train was going to get me to home.

**We’re Always Here. Don’t Try And Forget.**

How could I?

Anyway, on the one hand the fact that I was going to have to walk from Nightwarren to home made the entire situation harder than it had to be. Mum didn’t know I was coming home yet and having to explain why I was home would be hard enough without being out of breath and sore all over. On the other hand, there was a pretty important stop to make along the way, so I couldn’t complain too much, and hopefully that stop would lift my spirits enough to carry me the rest of the way home.

“This is the ARBORAIL service to FAWNTON, this is NIGHTWARREN, alight here for services to HERDING. Our next stop is FAWNTON.”

I stood up, shuffled my way past sleeping riders, tried my best to dance my way around the forest of racks and prongs belonging to the remaining passengers, got snagged and made my awkward apologies regardless, got my bag and hopped off the train. The fact that Nightwarren had a train station and home didn’t was a matter of coincidence more than anything, and it showed in the station; one squat building (opening times 8am - 12pm, a sign to ask for the key to the toilet) and one bridge, two railway tracks, and nothing else. This place was a ghost town, little more than a midway point between places with more life to them. The summer night was warm, the wind was cool on my face. I straightened my shirt and skirt out of habit and took off walking. I hit the main road soon after and took a moment to take it in. Trees flanked either side of it, with fields beyond them that rustled with endless rows of grain in the night air like the whispers of the audience, looking down on me for my foolish mistakes. In the dark it seemed to stretch on forever, a black tunnel into my future without a light at the end to look forward to.

It was a straight walk home from here.


	2. So Where Are We Stopping?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, fair warning, I'm not certain if this chapter counts as 'mature' or 'explicit' so if you wanna weigh in on that it'd be helpful. CW: Blood.

Somewhere that’ll either end up with me getting my ass kicked or getting hugged tearfully, maybe both, and honestly I’d be happy with either outcome at this point. Halfway down the road between Nightwarren and home is a small diner that’s open all night. The diner serves awful food and even worse coffee. Yet it’s frequented anyway, because where else are you going to go when there’s nothing left in the house and it’s 3am and you’ve lost control of your life? The diner’s denizens don’t judge, don’t watch. They drink shitty coffee and eat greasy food with altogether too much meat and not enough of literally anything else, and they slowly turn into ghosts. While not an admirable approach to dealing with life’s problems, in my position it was an enviable one. However, I couldn’t just go to the all-night diner to waste away.

For one reason or another, the girl behind the counter wouldn’t let me.

I approached the diner on sore legs, altogether too aware that a combination of rough feet, long toenails and a long walk had probably ruined these tights irrevocably, and looked up at the flickering neon sign. A crudely animated set of long neon jaws snapped back at me, snatching up an entire chicken (whose horror and fear was surprisingly and worryingly well rendered). The sign hadn’t read or looked the way it did now when I’d left; a change in management wouldn’t have surprised me, it was the least he deserved for 12 years of tireless, thankless work. The sign now read:  
“Seb’s Diner! Eat Up or Get Out!”  
It stood like a fluorescent tumor in the night, pulsing and hateful and defiant against a world that would prefer to see it destroyed. It spoke like a tumour too, and what it said was “I am a sickness, yes, but I am a sickness that you gave birth to”, and I didn’t have the energy to confront or correct it. It was all I could do to approach the glass double doors like a traveller piercing the veil into another world. No fairies, demons or gods awaited me on the other side as the diner’s bell rang to signal my arrival; just a girl, more of a young woman now, sitting behind a counter, reading a comic book, not bothering to look up. Her purple hair was tied up out of her face, revealing her naked eyes to world; that was new, and appreciable I suppose, even if it made me jealous that what was once reserved for me now belonged to world. No, she was not a fairy, a demon or a goddess.

She was a queen.

She was my queen.

And I had abandoned her.

I sat down at the counter, dropped my bag by the stool, crossed my arms and leant forward. I waited for her to take notice, which took a surprisingly long time, but considering the nature of the other patrons (one was passed out against the glass of the window, another was just asleep next to a stool he’d presumably fallen off of) and the time of night, I couldn’t exactly blame her. Languorously she folded the corner of her comicbook’s present page and finally looked up at me. Her beautiful eyes met mine, then widened, before her entire face twisted into a snarl. Before even deigning to talk to me directly, she called over her shoulder into the kitchen,  
“Seb! I’m stepping out!”  
“Better not be a smoke break!” the voice from the back replied, far deeper than I remembered it, like the rumbling of thunder.  
“Kris is home!” Susie replied irritably. Through the serving window I caught the gaze of a single giant eye, larger than Susie’s entire head, before a resonant “Well how ‘bout that” came through. Susie, apparently taking this for permission, hopped the counter in one swift move, grabbed my hand, and dragged me outside. I struggled to keep up with her ridiculously long legs as she dragged me around to back of the diner. Next to a dumpster she picked me up by the throat and held me against the wall. I tried my best to remain calm, but just being close to her again had set my heart pounding like it was locked outside in the dead of winter.  
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You think you can just turn up while I’m at work? After two fucking years? You think you’re allowed to just come home without telling me? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”  
She released her grip around my neck and dropped me, and I fell to my knees painfully, involuntarily letting out a small cry which made Susie scoff. I stayed on the floor, reticent and submissive, as she loomed over me, her hands on her hips and her pinny reaching down to the floor like the robes of an inquisitor. I took a second to get my voice back before continuing.

“I couldn’t make it at school,” I started, choking on the words as they struggled through my bruised voicebox and wounded ego, “I couldn’t, I was miserable, so I had to come home.” I looked up to her pleadingly, and thought for a second I saw a retreating sympathy on her face. As soon as I saw it, however, it was gone, and replaced once again by a snarl.  
“So you wasted two years of your own life and two years we could’ve had together to come home early and complain about it? What a fucking joke.” For a joke, she didn’t seem to find it very funny. Before I could even stagger out a response her sinuous arms reached under my own and placed me on a dumpster. That she seemed to find pretty fun.  
“Look, you’re a trash coward, who belongs in the trash!” she said, apparently pretty amused by the image of me sitting on the dumpster. This was fine. I definitely at least kind of deserved this. Even if I didn’t I wasn’t about to complain; having Susie touch me and pick me up and move me around and make me feel small and helpless was one of the things I’d missed most about home. It would be worse if she wasn’t touching me, honestly. She recovered from her raucous laughter while I was thinking about that, and began to wipe joyous tears of her eyes. As soon as the tears were gone, so was the smile I had enjoyed seeing for the first time in altogether too long. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said what I was thinking the whole time I was watching her laugh at her own dumb joke.  
“Susie,” I choked, tears welling in my eyes, “I’ve missed you so much.”

Her expression softened for a moment, then turned to a snarl as she grabbed me by the lapels of my shirt. She forced me up against the wall while I still sat on the dumpster. We locked eyes and were in an awkward silence for a time, before Susie gave a bellowing roar of frustration and nearly ripped off my shirt. She watched my naked chest heave for a second, watched me sweat in fear, and like the predator she was she buried her teeth into me, from shoulder to pectoral. My head swam, sparks burst in my eyes and added new constellations to the sky full of stars I saw as I threw my head back in satisfaction. Her hands took ahold of my wrists and pinned them to the wall; her fingernails, more like talons now, dug into the soft of my flesh, careful not to draw blood but certain in their intent to cause pain. She came up to look me in the face, her eyes wild and hungry, her maw slick with my blood, and then she kissed me deeply. She tasted like burger grease and copper. It was a foul taste, and like a cigarette I was addicted to it nonetheless. I tried to force my way back against her, to assert some measure of control over the situation, but her straining neck pushed my head back against the wall, and I relented, giving myself over to her completely. She sank her teeth into me again, the other shoulder this time, gentler this time, not drawing blood, her anger somewhat sated. If I had to pay the price of intimacy in blood so be it; I was as starved and half-mad for it as she was. Her jaws came away from me a second time, and now she pulled herself up onto the dumpster, straddling my legs and rising high above me. Her hands desperately, awkwardly reached under her dress and pulled down her underwear, and then with the same awkward desperation she took a handful of my hair and forced my head under her dress…

I don’t feel like telling you the rest. Not with voyeurs present.

**That’s A Shame, We Were Just Getting To The Good Part.**

You sicken me.

After I had paid my recompense, she leant against the rough brick wall with boh hands, huffing and panting. Then without a word she shuffled off me, landed on the floor with a thud, and hiked her knickers back up, all business. She coughed into her hand, unsure of herself for a moment, then turned back to me.  
“I’m going to get some stuff to let you clean up before you go home. Ralsei’s at the manor, but he’s gonna be asleep and I don’t get home til 12am. I swear if you wake him up before I’m home I’ll kill you,” she muttered quickly, straightening herself out before heading back inside, pulling a cloth kerchief from a pocket in her pinny and wiping the blood from her mouth that she couldn’t reach with her tongue. I was left, huffing and used, discarded on the dumpster, until she returned with a bottle of water and a roll of paper towels and dumped them in my lap. She turned to walk away, as if she couldn’t look at me and speak at the same time.  
“I missed you too, freak,” she said, almost sheepish, before rushing back inside, presumably to finish her shift. I cleaned myself off, buttoned up my shirt, drank the water greedily and gratefully, shuffled off the dumpster, landed on my feet and took off, too awkward to go back into the diner and face Seb after all that. I hoped that Susie would bring my bags back with her. I couldn’t go see my little prince, at Susie’s behest, so there were no more diversions to distract me. There was only one destination left for tonight.

It was time to go see Mum.

I could only pray she wouldn’t ask about the blood stains.


	3. What Are You Going To Tell Her?

The truth, as best I can. I’ll probably leave the part about you out. Demons in my head that have haunted and mocked me my entire life probably isn’t going to come across as a very sympathetic reason, and I’m not a particularly big fan of being sectioned. Besides, it’s not like you were the biggest contributing factor; you’re an ache so constant it becomes instinct. Just the bone deep ache of a spine out of alignment, an improper mental posture given its own one-man show. Not worth mentioning, not worth acknowledging, broaching, approaching, revealing; worth only the corner of my mind I can back you into with what little energy I can spare to do so.

**Do You Assume Us Dormant? Folly. Pure Folly.**

You were quieter back home. I’ll quieten you again.

Right now for instance.

Shut the fuck up.

The walk is long and as the endorphins and histamines drain away the pain in my shoulder and breast only becomes more pronounced. My legs feel like the muscles are turning to autocannibalism to survive and for what feels like an hour I’m at the point of collapse. Then, quite without warning, I do collapse, and find myself crumpled onto the pavement, unable to force myself another step. Why did I think I could make this walk? I wasn’t a kid anymore, didn’t have that boundless energy and capacity for regeneration. My elasticity had become plasticity; I would be feeling the results of my efforts for days to come. I don’t know how long I was out there, like so much refuse, before I saw the headlights. I couldn’t tell if I wanted it to pass me by and leave me to wallow or to stop and end it all for me. Overdramatic; no murderers at home, last I checked, regardless of rural legends and childhood rumours. No, Miss Alphys (I would never be able to kick the habit of calling her miss) probably wasn’t secretly a widow and no Officer Undyne probably wasn’t secretly feeding lawbreakers to pigs.

The car pulled up beside me, and from the driver’s side a colossal shape unfurled ridiculously, like a daddy long legs emerging from a pill bottle. The shape strode over to me, squatted down, and reached down to pet my head. I couldn’t make out its features in dark, only the glint of moonlight like the eye shine of a cat gave any hints. I tried for who I hoped it was, fearful of anyone else.  
“Dad?” I tried, weakly, pushing into the hand that pet me, enjoying the small comfort it offered.  
“Not quite squirt,” a familiar voice said, deeper now than I had ever remembered it. The shape scooped me up in bough-like arms and as it carried me around to the passenger side door, I at last saw the illuminated, grim expression of my older brother, and the shame I felt made me want to crawl into a ball that would eat itself and disappear. I was slid gently into the passenger side of the two door, and almost drunkenly I found myself slumping against the window, enjoying the refreshing cold against my pounding head, desperately trying to put my seatbelt on in the dark.

Asriel sat down in the driver’s side and, seeing my difficulty, plugged me in. I felt like a kid again. Asriel sat in silence, for a moment, then gave a heavy sigh, started the engine, did what was an almost certainly illegal U-turn, and began to make our way home.  
“So where’s the blood from kiddo?” I stared out at the trees lining the road, each one counting the way home like tallies on how many more times I would be made to feel like a twat tonight.  
“Nowhere to be worried about,” I replied carefully, peeling my semi-sodden shirt from the spots where it had adhered to me like a jealous lover that was refusing to let go.  
“Yeah I can believe that, but you know mum’s gonna ask, so where’s the blood from kiddo?” Asriel tried again, his tone level and serious, not the jovial boy I grew up with any more.  
“Do you think she’d buy that I got pierced by one of the passengers headed to Fawnton?”  
“Why wouldn’t your shirt have holes in it?”  
“Changed my shirt at Seb’s I guess?”  
“Stopped at Sebastian’s did you? How was Susanne then?”  
I looked up the tired eye of the gibbous summer moon, passing its silent judgement against me almost as well as Asriel wasn’t. No judgement in his voice, but a concern so muted that I could barely hear it any more.  
“Squirt? How was Susie?”  
“...Mad. She was mad at me.”  
“Did Susanne do that to you then?” I turned to my brother and gave a half hearted but thoroughly shit-eating grin. He barely took his eyes of the road to see it.  
“You bet your bottom dollar she did.”  
My brother did not have much of a reaction to that. Which was good, because I was really done with talking. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a reverie in which I made my plans and made my peace. There was no easy way to tell Mum why I was home and why I probably wasn’t going to be leaving again.

We pulled up outside Mum’s house unceremoniously, and we sat in the driveway for a moment or more. Asriel took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose.  
“I don’t mean to be hard on you kiddo,” he started, but before he could finish I put my hand on his. His gaze finally settled on me properly, and his eyes were as big and soft as I remembered, at last.  
“It’s not your fault I’m home, Ass-boy,” I said teasingly, squeezing his hand gently as I did, “it’s not anyone’s fault but mine. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.”  
He turned away from me, let out a long sigh, put his glasses back on, then turned to me and smiled that winning smile of his, somehow still itself despite the dampening sadness that had seeped into it and propagated despair like water propagates black mould.  
“Okay kiddo, but you gotta promise me you’ll do your best to do the same, okay?”  
“Deal.”  
I unbuckled my belt, and turned my attention instead to the almost luxurious-seeming two-storey in front of us. The lights were on, despite the time. I suspected that whoever had told Asriel I was home told Mum as well, and those lights were on for me. They whispered their own message, one that didn’t exactly fill me with hope.  
_You can come home, sweetheart, but we’re going to have to talk about why._  
Wishing to delay the inevitable, still staring into the windows with the drawn snail print curtains, I made small talk with the boy I loved second most in all the world.  
“Still living here with Mum then?”  
“Yeah. I got a job offer in Asgoring but it didn’t work out. Not a lot of work out here in general. There was something out near Herding but I didn’t want to have to make that commute every day. I feel like having a PHD should let me make that choice, right?”  
I looked around the interior of the shitty two-door. The floor was littered with take-out boxes from QC’s, the cup holder boasting not one but two large cups filled with melted ice. A ghost whose dreams had not come to fruition sat in the driver’s seat next to me, his body almost perfectly aligned with my brother’s, except the ghost wasn’t smiling.  
“Yeah, you have that right,” I said, finally. I patted his thigh, rested my head on his shoulder for a moment (it was getting harder to reach), then steeled myself and stepped out.

**Welcome Home Kris.**

Thanks.

Glad to be home.

I came to the heavy brown door, mottled as it was with the weathering of the seasons and in desperate need of a new coat of paint, and before I could even raise a fist to knock, it was flung open. I expected my mother to fill the door frame. It had been so long since I’d seen her that I had reverted to thinking of her as the towering figure of my childhood. The woman that answered the door was tall, yes, but I was gaining on her noticeably, and it took almost no effort to look her in the eyes. In a way, this made it worse. If she had been towering, inscrutable, immutable, I would not have been able to see the tears in her eyes. The eyes of my mother. The eyes of my brother. The eyes paradoxically shared by my little prince. So many sets of teary eyes stared at me in that moment that I could not help but break down. Before I could even string a sentence out for her, I began to sob, and my mother pulled me to her breast like she had done so many times to the quivering, miserable child she had raised. That was what I was again now, what I felt I had always been; a sad child whom no amount of encouragement and cuddles could fix. For a while, we stood there on the doorstep. Asriel joined us after a moment and sandwiched me between himself and Mum. The tears flowed between all of us. No questions were asked. Finally, when there were no more tears to shed, we went inside, as a family, and sat down in the living room. Mum brought me dinner; she had made pie for dessert. We discussed mundane things. Mum asked about the blood on my shirt; a inattentive deer’s fault, obviously.

Without discussing it, I went to bed in my childhood bedroom, which still carried all the remnants of who I was, preserved like a mausoleum to my mother’s memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I have tonsillitis.  
> Also I have a ko-fi if anyone feels like supporting my existence.  
> ko-fi.com/aveawan


	4. Are You Sleeping Comfortably?

No, because I’m working on this essay.  
 **Which Essay Is That?**  
The one that’s due tomorrow and has been due for a month. The one I started at the last minute and am currently on my tenth black coffee trying to finish. I can feel my blood vessels, and they are bursting.  
 **Why Did You Leave It So Long?**  
Because for the entire month that it was due the idea of starting work on it made me want to vomit and subsequently die. So I put it off til the next day; and the next day; and the next day; then there were no more days left, and the deadline was on me like a tiger jumping from the tall grass.  
 **How Long Have You Been Awake?**  
What time is it?  
 **It’s 7am By Our Reckoning.**  
Trick question, I’ve been awake for two days straight; the first day was spent worrying about the deadline so much I couldn’t sleep, the second was spent trying to write an introduction. Why are introductions always so fucking hard?  
 **We’ll Graciously Ignore That That’s Not What a Trick Question Is.**  
Fuck off already, I’m working.  
 **No You’re Not, Kris.**

**You’re Sleeping.**

**It’s Time To Wake Up, Squirt.**

What?

“I said it’s time to wake up, kiddo,” Came my brother’s voice, his leonine paw nudging my shoulder gently, his eyes still gummed with rheum, “I know the oneiroi make fine company and Hypnos is a devilishly handsome sort, but you gotta get up.”  
Unwillingly but dutifully I opened my eyes properly, and blinked at the sunrise streaming in through the half-cracked curtains of our shared room. Asriel was in his pyjamas still, which meant I could probably stay in bed for a couple more hours before he started getting really insistent, which I was fully prepared to do, were it not for the fact that I’d forgotten to do something important the night before. I locked eyes with Asriel.  
“Shit.”  
“What?”  
“Can you drive me to Susie’s?”  
“Should probably get dressed first, squirt.”  
I looked down to find that the only thing between my naked body and the world at large was my duvet, which I pulled up rapidly.  
“Yeah that,” I started, sitting up with the covers to my chest, “that sounds like a good idea.”  
With that, Asriel shuffled off to get breakfast, and I got back into the same clothes I had arrived in. No bags, no clothes, no fresh and presentable me; just the broken down wreck that I was, unhidden and unafraid. When I was covered I headed downstairs, hurrying past the dining room as quickly as I could, where Mum and Asriel were already chatting over breakfast. They ignored me, kindly, as I dipped into bathroom to inspect my wounds. They weren’t deep, gracefully, but they would scar, and I wasn’t thrilled about that. They had already begun to scab, and not knowing whether or not to, I dabbed them with the alcohol from the first aid kit behind the mirror that I could always trust would be there. It stung like hell, but I bit my tongue, dug my nails into my palm, gritted my teeth, and did whatever else people do when they’re trying not to shriek in pain while disinfecting their lover’s bite marks. I washed my face; brushed my teeth; brushed my hair, etc. and then finally steeled myself to face my family.

I emerged to find the table was empty, all that was left for me was a stack of pancakes drowned in maple syrup. The TV played quietly a room over, and a note awaited me on the table.  
“Kris,  
I’ve gone to work sweetheart, make sure to look after your brother today, picking you up yesterday stressed him out to no end. I’ll see you around 6.  
I love you, I’m proud of you, and I always will be”  
I began bawling immediately. I was not prepared, and the note crumpled in my hand as I balled my hands into fists and sobbed ridiculously over my plate. I heard the TV turn off and the distant sound of a giant padding his way over to me. My brother wrapped his arms around me gently, and with great effort leant down to rest his head upon mine, rocking me back and forth as was his habit, and my comfort. I felt stupid. I felt like I was five again. It didn’t help that he began to shush me comfortingly, nor that I was comforted by his infantilising shushing. Maybe I wanted to be five again. Maybe I wanted to be a baby that Asriel could play at parenting and Mum could cook sweet things and Dad could carry on his shoulders again, so sick of all the responsibilities and freedoms that adulthood entailed.  
“Gonna eat your pancakes kiddo? If you don’t I’m gonna devour those morsels.”  
Defiantly, I unwrapped my arms from his and began working away at the soggy sweetness that my plate had become, and chewed purposefully that he might feel it from atop my head. Being an adult meant that my big brother couldn’t steal my breakfast anymore, so at least I had that to comfort me. Asriel chuckled, and I felt the rumble all throughout my body, like a small earthquake localised to his sternum.  
“Have it your way,” He murmured, smiling, unwrapping himself from me, standing to his true height again, and ruffling my carefully combed hair with one massive hand, wiping the tears from my face with the other. When I could muster a smile through a mouthful of mess, he smiled so sincerely it almost made me cry again, then shuffled off to watch TV once more.

I cleaned up my plate, then went to hassle Asriel for a ride. He obliged me, without complaint, and I told him I loved him, and I really meant it, and he told me he knew, and that he loved me too. I didn’t feel worthy of it. The car ride was uneventful; we listened to the music we’d been listening to since I was old enough to appreciate it and Asriel was old enough to find it, and we talked about school nightmares, and how they still haunted Asriel’s dreams too, even though he’d been finished with the whole business for a while now. As I stepped out I hugged him again, told him I loved him again, and for all the world felt for some reason like I was going to my death. I was back here, after all; a corpse among the corpse estate, here to haunt it like I had in days long past. No Seb on the front porch to greet me, which caused funny twists in my gut, as if that alone made this whole thing wrong. The things we come to accept as givens until they are gone are ghosts in their own right; spectres and images that linger long after we think them to be in absentia, echoing long past the lost age in which they were born, and even longer past the one where they perished. The rotting redwood of the porch’s boards creaked as I approached the door like a woman approaching the gallows, ready for whatever waited on the other side of the rope. I knocked our special knock, and waited patiently. I heard the skittering of little claws running enthusiastically over stone and wood, and not long after the door was flung open. Standing in the doorway, exactly as small as I remembered him, was my little prince, his skirt blowing in the midsummer breeze. We locked eyes, and both found ourselves smiling and blushing quite without the notice of our conscious minds.

“Hi,” Ralsei started, breaking the joyous silence.  
“Hi,” I croaked, tears of joy welling in my eyes. His voice was warm and sweet as maple syrup.  
“Do you want to come in, Kris?” He pressed, still beaming, eyes twinkling, beautiful as the Mona Lisa and twice as priceless. His hands were politely behind his back, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater.  
“Yeah, yeah I think I do.”  
I stepped in, and as soon as I was across the threshold and the door was shut behind me he threw himself against my hips, wrapping his arms around me tightly, nestling his head into my breasts. I steadied myself against the door, thrown off guard by the force of his hug, but righted myself quickly, taking ahold of his head by either side, and kissing him on his forehead. Lifting his face away from my breast, so that he was looking me in the eye once more, then, as came naturally with the sweet little prince I loved, kissing him deeply, taking control of him by the mouth, wrestling him into submission and once more making him mine. He relented of course; willingly, desperately, so lost without my touch and my love that to feel it now was a light at the end of the tunnel. When I was done with his mouth, I reached down and scooped him into a bridal carry, and nuzzled his impossibly soft collar lovingly, which made him giggle and squirm in my grasp.  
“Where’s Susie?” I whispered into his collarbone, so happy just to be smelling him again.  
“She’s asleep upstairs, she didn’t get off her shift until late last night.”  
“Bad idea to wake her up?”  
“I think so, yeah.”  
“Wanna do something else while we wait?” I asked, pulling away to study his expression. At the merest hint it had taken on an air of restrained, hopeful excitement; a puppy anticipating the jangling of a lead.  
“What would you suggest?” He whispered in my ear, pulling himself to it by my neck, digging his claws into my nape ever so slightly, and altogether too obviously. Desperate, lovely little Ralsei; my little prince. It was so good to have him back in my arms; I knew it would feel even better to have him back in my bed.


	5. It Always Comes Back To Sex With You Doesn’t It?

You’re not allowed to judge me, university was a two year dry spell where I didn’t talk to anyone for more than hour a week and spent most of my time in my room, playing videogames alone. I’m allowed to be touch-starved and in desperate need of intimacy after that shitshow. Staying away from home for so long, staying at school on the holidays, just to get work finished that I never got finished. After that delusion had left I ended up staying at school to avoid having to face my family and friends as the failure I had become. For two long years I only heard the voices of the people I loved most in all the world on the phone, only then when I could muster the courage to speak to them at all. Am I not allowed to just want to feel skin on skin, lips to lips, tips against tips?

**Perverted.**

Love, even physical love, is not itself perverted. It can be pure and beautiful and deep and can convey so much with so little, words passing between every point of contact. Though that being said, yes the physical love Ralsei and I indulged in that disused guest bedroom was certainly of a perverted sort. As I wanted it to be; as he wanted it to be; with such a coincidence of want, how could it be any other way? So it was that lips glistened, eyes rolled, hips shuddered, hands were pinned above heads and I field dressed the little lamb like a sacrifice to a capricious god. Haruspex and sacrifice. Martyr and empress. Lashed to the tree with gentle yet firm hands. Lashed viciously all over with kisses and scratches and grips that were just a little too tight. St Sebastian pierced by the shaft of his captor, and afterwards cared for by the loving hands of an angel, sent to lift him to paradise.

We lay together on the titanic bed, panting in soft reverie, smelling like nothing more than sex and sweat, feeling nothing less than pure bliss. I looked into his magnificent eyes, saw the excitement and contentment swirl like a hurricane over the sea, and I felt such joy that I thought my heart might explode and my brain would shatter like a plate against a wall, leaving only positive sensation and animal instinct to guide me. I propped myself up against the headboard, and pulled prone little Ralsei to my stomach, resting his head there, patting it gently, playing with his wonderfully fluffy ears. Silence; perfect, comfortable, loving silence, lay on the room like the blanket that lay on our naked forms. Soon after I heard Ralsei fall into soft snores, and I could not help but follow suite.

**That Was A Mistake.**

**Are You Sleeping Comfortably?**

How could I sleep in this fucking club? Why is the music so goddamn loud? Does anyone actually enjoy this? Are they all just too drunk to care? Why did I think this was a good idea? Nobody wants to take me home, and I dont want to go home with anyone. I want Susie and Ralsei. So desperate not to be alone I forced myself outside to this hellish place yet can’t even force myself to go home. What the fuck is wrong with me? Was I born broken, or was I made this way? It’s so loud. It’s so hot. I can’t see a thing for all the darkness, pierced only by flashing, disorienting lights. I’m going to vomit. I vomited. I vomited on someone? They don’t seem to have noticed, they just keep on dancing, spraying my putrid spew all around them like a dervish of disease. I need to get out, how the fuck do I get out? Where’s the exit?

**Calm Down Now Kris.**

**Get Up, Freak.**

Susie?

“I said get up, you lazy bitch,” she said, nudging my face with one long, extended talon. She was leant against the wall, stained wife beater reaching down past her hips, jeans torn to shreds, cigarette leaning from her maw. I looked down to see Ralsei undisturbed and sleeping peacefully.  
“You don’t have to be rude,” I murmured, raising a hand to swipe the talon out of my face and wipe the rheum from my eyes. Gently, I shifted Ralsei from my stomach to the pillow, and emerged from the bed reluctantly, like a moth from a chrysalis. While still in my chrysalid state I attempted to tuck Ralsei in, bending over the bed in the process. My naked ass apparently proved too much temptation for Susie, who proceeded to smack it so hard that I almost fell over. I took a second to recover from impact, then sighed deeply, in a manner more resembling faux resentment than genuine contentment. A satisfied, malicious chuckle came from behind me, and after finishing my task I fell backwards into her arms, putting all my weight upon her. The chuckling turned to a slight wheeze as she struggled to hold me up by my underarms, and I looked up to see her straining expression staring down at me, annoyed. I pecked the underside of her jaw, and for all of her attempted aloofness and anger I saw her turn away instinctively and blush in the manner I loved so much.

Then she dropped me on my ass. 

“Ouch”  
“Welcome to what it feels like to misplace your trust, loser.”  
“Like a sore ass?”  
“You betcha.”  
I leaned my head against her knees, and nuzzled them gently. She reached down to pet me, instinctively, before grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me to a standing position. She took my hand tightly and lead me to her room, where my bag was sitting open on the floor.  
“Get dressed, I wanna go out for a smoke before our little mutton wakes up,” she barked gruffly, tapping her nails against the heavy wooden frame impatiently. She watched me the entire time I was changing, her stare no different than if I were a piece of premium beef..  
“You had your turn already, you can wait until Ralsei’s awake,” I muttered, not looking at her as I slipped into the sundress I had wanted to arrive in.  
“How’s the bite treating ya?” She asked, and I could hear the shit eating grin in her voice. I turned around to face her with my hands on my hips, trying my best to form a displeased, unamused expression, but her smile and the way it bared her teeth quelled any urge to fight back I might’ve had. How I’d missed her. We tip-toed through the echoing, creaking halls of the house, and settled into our chairs on the porch. She lit up as soon as we were sat down, and began to tap her claws against the arm of her throne.

“Seb’s getting worse,” she stated matter of factly.  
“Emotionally or physically?”  
“I don’t think he can get much worse emotionally. He spends all his time in the diner, and when he does come home he doesn’t talk, he just curls up in the living room and stays asleep til he decides its time to go back.”  
“How much has he grown while I was away?”  
“Last measurement was another foot, which means he’s not slowing down at all.”  
Tears were forming in her eyes, I didn’t know what to say.  
“Is it going to happen to you?”  
“He says it isn’t, but I don’t know how he’d know. It’s not like he’s ever been to the doctor about it.”  
Deep drags, lungfuls of smoke, trying to kill all the thoughts she was now relating, the ones that she had kept to herself while I was gone. I reached out and squeezed her tapping hand, and without even turning her attention to me she squeezed back, almost hard enough to break my bones. Her gaze was cast out to no man’s land, where an uncertain future waited for her to move towards it like a machine gunner’s foxhole.  
“His teeth don't fit inside his mouth anymore.”  
“Yeah?”  
“He has to keep his mouth open constantly, he drools all the time.”  
“That doesn’t sound great.”  
“No it’s...it’s not ideal.”  
An edge of panic in her voice, a hint of what exactly she thought was coming in her face. There’d always been rumours and apocryphal tales of certain people reverting to what they were like before the world was made peaceful; it was becoming more and more likely that Seb wasn’t just sick, but was one such person. Unspoken but known was the fact that the intelligence was draining from Seb’s eyes; the humour from his voice. He was becoming an animal so gradually as to make it torturous.

It’d be a miracle if he made it to thirty with his mind in tact. Almost impossible for him to live to thirty five at all.

I squeezed her hand as tight as I could, feeling all that she had bottled up while I was away. I felt like shit. She needed me as much as I needed her, and I was too wrapped up in my self-pity to be there for her. I should’ve come home sooner. I shouldn’t have waited. I should’ve been there for her. My face flared with anger and self-loathing, and I must have squeezed extra hard because she finally broke her gaze from the middle distance to look at me. My guilt was painted on my face like obscene graffito on a perfectly whitewashed wall, naked and obvious. We shared that moment, that silent apology, that show of total willingness for all the penance she could ask of me, and then it passed as suddenly as it came, and her gaze went back out to the treeline.  
“I don’t hate you Kris,” she said, suddenly so tired and lacking all bravado, “I’m angry but I don’t hate you. I just can’t do this alone and you abandoning me for two years was the last thing I needed.”  
“I didn’t want to abandon you,” I choked out, “I was just too cowardly to do anything else.”

Summer breeze played through the trees, the ghosts of unspoken words flying out into the wilderness, never to return.


	6. So Do You Do Anything Besides Be Miserable and Copulate?

Wouldn’t be much of a relationship if we didn’t, would it.

**For Some Relationships, The Two Suffice.**

Well our relationship is no such ball and chain. Though the world prodded us onwards through its cruel and uncaring death march, we held onto each other for strength, slowly learning how best to grow wings and fly away. Though through my absence I had tattered our feathers, fettered us once more, the abiding strength that we found within one each other could not leave us; it was present at the diner, at the door, on the porch, and as long as we were together again it would be there, a holy ghost that lived to prophesy our survival through each other. Though all that sounds grandiose, it was through little things that we found our strength, and I felt impending a day full of little things. Susie stubbed her cigarette out against a porch column, and I noticed the rows upon rows of burn marks where she had done just that, like tallies marking all the days she had spent without the third of her heart I had taken with me when I left. We went back inside, to find Ralsei sleepily stoking the fireplace.

**It’s Summer.**

Susie doesn’t like the cold and Ralsei and I could take the heat. When his tired mind finally registered our footsteps behind him, Ralsei turned on his bottom slowly, facing us with a sleepily contented smile and eyes that were still remembering how to be open.  
“Hey,” he slurred out, trying to stand but not making it all the way, plopping back down on his bottom and staying there. In his haste to make the house comfortable for Susie, he had forgotten to get dressed. His calm, petit form was a sight for sore eyes, and I couldn’t help but stop to admire it. Susie moved past me and scooped him up in her arms effortlessly.  
“C’mon baby, let’s get you dressed,” she said, nuzzling his fluffy chest gently.  
“Oh dear, how do I keep forgetting,” he drawled, before a blithe giggle made its way past his lips that perhaps implied forgetfulness had played no part.  
I awaited their return, and rearranged the blankets on the sofa; our habit was to nest down in them, all three of us, and watch movies on the tiny 15’’ we’d convinced Susie to buy with her second paycheck (the first one having been blown in its entirety on an air rifle). I made up our spaces; Susie preferred the thickest blankets to warm her chilly scales, Ralsei the thinnest for his altogether far too warm black fur, and I went without, content to leech warmth from them.

Ralsei returned, clad in a not much more modest outfit than the birthday suit he had left in. I had and continued to refuse to indulge Susie’s obsession with the zettai ryouiki of the anime we watched, and so with Ralsei’s only clothing preference being that his clothes be airy, she peopled half of his wardrobe with thigh highs and skirts that served to accentuate them and their desired effect tenfold. However the erotic power of this was offset by the fact that on his top he wore a jumper several sizes too large, so much so that it dropped halfway down the tartan skirt and lost his form in its folds, his arms becoming little more than empty floppy sleeves 3/4s along. Ralsei’s outfits rarely looked fashionable, and this was only made worse by Susie dressing him, but I adored them, their idiosyncrasy and sweet sincerity warming the deep, dark places of my heart that I would often forget existed. Together we bedded down, sinking into each other, my head to Susie’s chest, Ralsei’s to my lap. The soundtrack of whatever it was we were watching was replaced in my head by Susie’s steady, beating heart. It beat hard, but slow, a steady beat, stable, unafraid, unfettered. Was it always as such, or was it the ease of our love that calmed it? When I put my ear to her sternum to hear it, eavesdropping on the language of her body, did my act of observation give it concrete form? Perhaps impossible to say, but I knew what answer I hoped for.

We switched from watching whatever dumb horror film we’d put on to make fun of to watching Susie’s favourite anime, which I didn’t find much more engaging. Her constant punching of the air and gripping of fists as swords flashed and guns cracked and heroes gave their final speeches drove my head from her chest to her stomach. Perhaps it is overdone to think only of a lover’s heartbeart as the sound of intimacy. Perhaps we should praise more often the sound of gurgling guts and digestion? Near impossible to hear without an ear to a stomach, but impossible to ignore when in truest proximity, and familiar to all those who had felt such intimacy, yet unique between each lover that would allow such familiarity. Ralsei, disappointed with how far my body had fallen and how uncomfortable and untenable his position had become, decided to express such discontentment by perching on my prone form, gently kneading his knuckles into the soft of my back, careful not to hit bone. I felt myself begin to drift off again, despite the ruckus that the long-obsolete speakers we had bought at a discount were making around us. The heat was intoxicating, exhausting, and I could no longer remain awake.

**Are You Sure You Want To Do That Kris.**

**You Know What Happens When Y-**

Hush up now, I’m trying to enjoy the food. Ralsei put a lot of effort into this going away meal and I want to make sure I savour my last home cooked meal from someone who actually knows how to cook. Susie got me a new dress, which was sweet of her, especially since I only started on my hormones last month. She says she wouldn’t get me a dress if she didn’t think I’d look cute in it. I don’t want to leave, but I’ll be home soon, so I won't have to miss them for long. 

Everything’s going to be okay.

**Hm. How Strange.**

**Regardless.**

**Wake Up Loser, We’re Going Shooting.**

Oh okay.

Susie shook me awake gently, her hand firm but reassuring on my shoulder. Ralsei sat atop her mantle, playing with her hair absentmindedly, the bare fur of his thighs pressed to her ears.  
“Gimme a minute,” I moaned resentfully, wanting to catch what rest I could.  
“I gave you two years. C’mon you owe me that final match.” Her voice was a little louder than was appropriate, probably due to the caprine ear muffs she had acquired.  
My brain, still trying its best to get back to REM, failed to recall what she meant.  
“I thought you said shooting?”  
“Yeah, and as it stands I owe you $200. You promised me we’d have a final rematch when you were home from college, double or nothing, and I wanna be free of that debt.”  
I sat up, which is itself a heroic effort, the gravity around the couch so much stronger than when I fell asleep. I rubbed my eyes with the arm that hadn’t remained asleep, and managed to finally meet her gaze. My heart almost popped; for the first time since I got home, her eyes were twinkling, her smile sincere rather than cruel. She was so beautiful, and her happiness multiplied that beauty hundredfold.  
“I’m so lucky to have you,” I murmured without thinking. I saw a blush creep into her shining features, before she swatted me gently in the head, causing me to giggle and cower playfully.  
“Flattery won’t get you out of the $400 you’re gonna owe me in a minute, cowgirl,” she laughed, pulling me to my feet by the hand I weakly offered to her. As I stood up, Ralsei leaned down to peck me, and I gratefully returned the act, standing on my tippy toes to reach.  
“You going to be joining in on the competition Rals?” I asked as he tried to sink, blushing, into his jumper.  
“I’m going to be setting up the targets and keeping score,” the small muffled voice came back.  
“Aren’t you a star.” I took his left foot in my right hand, and kissed it as an envoy from distant lands might kiss the hand of a beautiful prince. His legs kicked with excitement and embarrassment, so simple and so easy and so fun to make feel all flustered and loved.

We went out to the back yard, where a setting midsummer sun greeted us. Susie cracked open the old steamer trunk out back where she kept all the refuse that she thought would make good targets. Setting Ralsei down next to it to get to work, pecking him on the head before he did so, she head back inside to grab her rifle. I watched my little prince work, and unfortunately without Susie to safe-guard me from it through playful punishment, my guilt returned.  
“Hey Rals?”  
“Yes Kris?”  
“Why aren’t you mad at me for being gone so long?”  
He stopped rustling through the trunk for a second, his face obscured from my position. A heavy silence hung for no longer than a second, though it felt far longer.  
“This wasn’t the longest I’ve waited for you. And at least this time I knew what I was waiting for. The first time I waited all I knew is we were destined to be a team. This time I was waiting for a third of myself to come home.”  
Ralsei looked up from the steamer trunk, finding the courage to speak to my face. Tears welled in his big, beautiful eyes, the moisture steaming his ridiculous spectacles.  
“Kris, if I had to wait forever for you to come home, I’d do it. My life was nothing without you and Susie; you two ARE my life, and I love you more than anything.”  
As he had been speaking, I had advanced on him, and when he had finished I held him closer than I thought I could hold anyone; he melted into me, our molecules mixing like miscible liquids. I kissed his head, and rocked him gently, calming my baby back to happiness; no need to worry about what was, only to enjoy what is. Susie returned to the tableau, rifle in hand.  
“Did you make Ralsei cry?” She demanded more than asked, her voice filled with concern, “If you made Ralsei cry I’m gonna put a pellet in your peachy little ass, Kris.”  
“She didn’t make me cry, I made myself cry,” Ralsei sniffled, squeezing me tightly, “Susie can you put down the gun and just come cuddle for a moment, please.”

Susie obeyed, unquestioningly, and we stood there for a time, drawing strength from our proximity, three parts of a greater whole, made complete once more.


	7. Isn’t Placing Your Happiness In Others Like That Dreadfully Unhealthy?

By nature, a person demands people. The idea that we could be entirely self-satisfied and self-sufficient is ridiculous, and the assertion that we should be goes beyond the ridiculous into the delusional. Stoicism and solipsistic philosophical masturbation be damned; without the ability to love and be loved, what do I have? You? There’s a frightful thought. Alone with my own mind for all eternity, my own thoughts shaping the world by whispers. No, I’m quite sick of you already, I don’t need to be alone with you more any more than I have been. Two years of that I’ve taken; I’ve had enough.

**We’re Never Going Away.**

You keep saying that like it’s anything more than another reason to seek out people to love me and distract me from you. I’ve heard enough from you for a lifetime. Now shut up, you’ll ruin my aim.

**You Can Fill Your Waking Hours With Distractions All You Like. You Can Seek Out Those Who Will Make You Feel Comfortable and Happy, And You Can Spend Your Days And Nights In Their Care. But We’re Never Going Away, Kris. When Those Waking Hours Can Stay Awake No More, When Those Who Love You Inevitably Leave, We Will Be Here. We’re Not Some Ball And Chain, Temporal Distraction. We’re Gravity Kris. Eventually, The Strain Of Holding Yourself Up Will Be Too Much To Bear. Not Just On You; On Everyone Who Loves You. When You Can No Longer Hold Yourself Up, And Those Who Love You Are Sick Of Trying, We’ll Still Be There.**

**We’re Never Going Away.**

“Wow your aim is straight garbo today cowgirl,” Susie muttered, a cigarette hanging from her toothy smile. I took aim, took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger, and missed the green beer bottle for the third time in a row. I sighed as I lowered the rifle, reloading it with impotent frustration.  
“How many tries do I have left again Rals?”  
“You get ten shots.”  
“Well if I can hit at least one then I can probably still beat Susie.”  
Susie reached languorously into the crate and threw a half-empty milk carton at my head. I ducked just in time for it to bounce off the top of my head, shifting its trajectory so that it hit the column of the back porch and split open, spilling chunky, pungent lactose spew all over the garden path, leaving collateral damage on the hanging scoreboard. Ralsei regarded the mess with mild concern.  
“Aww that’s gonna be so hard to clean up.”  
“I’ll handle it baby, don’t worry,” Susie replied, genuine concern creeping into her voice.  
I took aim, I shot, I fucking missed. Susie laughed raucously, so hard her cigarette was flung from her mouth and rolled between the cracks of the porch’s flooring, lost forever. I flipped her off, trying to reload the rifle with my thighs and my free hand while doing so. She gave me the double bird back, beaming deeply. I looked over to my little prince, watching the scene unfold with mild concern.  
“Hey Ralsei-baby, can I get a good luck kiss to try and get me back on my game?”  
“Only if you let Susie have one when it’s her turn.”  
“If you kiss Susie while it’s her turn she’s gonna be too busy blushing to aim, so sure, win win.”  
“Fuck you,” Susie said, already blushing at the thought.  
“I love you too, Suze.” I thought I heard her mutter that she loved me too under her breath but she was too busy hiding her face for me to hear it. Ralsei pushed himself up from his chair by the arms, struggling to find a grip past his immensely baggy sleeves. Once on his feet, he pattered over like a naiad dancing on the surface of the water, and laid a sylphic kiss upon my cheek. I blushed a bit, admittedly; Ralsei blushed more, retreating into his jumper and retracing his steps with his face hidden, falling carefully back into his seat.

**A Kiss? That’s Your Defense?**

The bottle exploded into glass shards. Susie cried out in mock-anguish, clutching at her hair. Ralsei emitted an excited “Yay!” at the noise alone, his sight still obscured by the hem of the sweater as he wiggled his way clear. Wiggling an arm free of his sleeve, trying to reclaim his hands from the mass, Ralsei reached for the chalk and marked one tally in my favour on the scoreboard, carefully avoiding the spattered milk. I reloaded the rifle, with slick confidence and bravado this time, no fumbling or jamming.  
“Be careful around the shards okay baby?” Susie called after Ralsei as he pranced like a fawn to replace the target.  
“I’m adorable, not stupid, you don’t have to remind me glass is sharp,” Ralsei called back playfully. Susie crossed her arms and hung her head sullenly.  
“Just don’t want you getting hurt…”

I won by a hair’s breadth; five to four. Susie’s a really bad shot, mostly because she refuses to tie up her hair before aiming, but also because me and Ralsei gave her a good luck kiss at the same time and she was left quaking so hard she’d fire off shots by accident. I told Susie she didn’t need to pay me back, and she called me a butthole and said of course she would. We climbed to the top of the house, emerging from the window in the attic, watching the moon rise in the distance, joyful in aspect and happy to see us. We held each other close as the summer air played over us, the only thing keeping Susie’s teeth from chattering being Ralsei and I’s warmth. The moon, once a companion to our discontent and terror, blessed our union with its gaze, and though it was not the first time, it was the first time in a long time, and it felt like it did when I was a kid once more.

When we had our fill of the night air, we returned to our bedroom and began our less spiritual festivities. Carnality and carnival combined; entering each other, seemingly spiritually and physically simultaneously, not a single piece of our united self obscured or missing now. None of our secrets were physical; we knew each others bodies like we knew our own, having awakened to each other the first time that winter night, and continuously, endlessly since then. Though at first it was hard to find the rhythm after so long, soon the well oiled machine that was our bodies in motion began to move as only we knew it could; pumping, grinding, spitting, grabbing, rolling, fuming, heating, consuming, almost mindlessly but with a simple and understood function that it followed endlessly and obediently. Then we died our little deaths, sacrificial lambs in honour of the god we made of our love, and lay there, panting and content in a mess of a bed that resembled the mess we’d made of ourselves.

**You Can’t Just Fuck The Pain Away. You’re Going To Have To Face Us Eventually.**

After Susie and Ralsei were sound asleep, I slunk out of bed, trying my best not to disturb them, and made my way downstairs. I was making my way to the porch, but before I could get there, I was interrupted by a voice that tried its best to shake the immortal timbers of this place.  
“Susie? Ralsei? Is that you?” Seb called out from the living room, his colossal form coiled in a way I didn’t think possible. His snout rested alongside his tail, and the roaring fire he had built for himself illuminated him like a dragon sleeping on its horde.  
“It’s me, Seb,” I called back, cautiously, admittedly still terrified of my beastly brother-in-law.  
“Oh, jus’ lil’ Krissy.” A deep, dark chuckle, like a well with a sense of humour, resounded throughout the house, and I worried it might wake even Susie and Ralsei.  
“C’mere a second Krissy, I gots ta talk to ya about somethin’.” I did as I was bid, moving to the end of the sofa closest to where Seb’s spear-like head lay. One giant eye, as big as a hubcap and as bright as a headlight, opened sleepily to greet me.  
“School di’n’t work out huh?”  
“No, not quite.”  
“That’s fine, I know the feelin’. Susie does too, so if she gets mad at ya, remember ta call her a hypocrite.”  
“She’s allowed to be mad at me.”  
“Jus’ ‘cause she’s allowed ta be don’t mean she should be. Sometimes growin’ up is knowing when ta do better by the people ya love.”  
“I guess I’ve got a lot of growing up to do then.”  
“Ya sure do, but also you’re still basically a kid, so no surprise there.” I nodded thoughtfully, though I think I resented being called a kid. I wasn’t sure if I preferred that or being an adult fuck-up.  
“It don’t matter, anyway. Ya got plenty of time left. Though mine’s runnin’ out.”  
I didn’t know what to say to that. It must’ve shown on my face, because that big, bright eye closed sympathetically, blinking in slow motion.  
“It’s alright, ya don’t gotta say anythin’. I just want ya ta listen ta me a sec okay?”  
I nodded, kept my lips tight and my expression attentive. Seb sighed, and I felt the ground beneath me rumble.  
“I’ve spent lil’ under half my life tryin’ make sure Susie’s okay. I din’t always do a good job, and I feel nothin’ but shame and regret for that. But I lived my life tryin’ ta do right by who I loved. And when Ralsei came ta live with us, and I came ta love him too, I tried ta do right by him as well. But I’m fallin’ apart, Krissy, and I can’t look after them no more. It’s okay that school din’t work out, but ya gotta promise me, swear on your heart, hope to die, that you’re gonna do right by them when I can’t no more, okay?”  
I did not cry, though I wanted to. I nodded, trying my best to remain stoic, and mostly failing. Seb closed his eyes once more, and did not open them.  
“But ya gotta promise me that you’re also gonna look after yourself, alright? Because I love you too, Krissy, and I need to know I can trust ya ta take care of yourself as much as I can trust ya ta take care of them. Can you promise me that too?”  
I cried. I cried a lot. I sobbed deeply. I wasn’t that strong. I didn’t feel strong enough to meet that promise, but through my tears I nodded, unable to refuse him. He nodded gently, the motion so slight yet made so massive by his form, then somehow curled up even tighter.  
“Good, good girl. You’re an angel, Krissy, a saint.” I hugged his snouth, wrapping my arms around it as best I could without causing him pain, and I felt his contented sigh almost shake the marrow free of my bones.

And there it was. St. Sebastian not as a nubile youth dying a glorious and artistic death, but St. Sebastian as he was, an old man going before his doom with no concern for himself, and being left just another cephalophore, carrying the weight of his own head to heaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying Coming Home, please do comment to tell me, numbers are nice but human feedback and validation means the world to me. Thanks for reading.


	8. It’s Wrong To Make Promises You Can’t Keep.

You can’t know at the time of making a promise whether or not you’re going to be able to keep it, barring the ridiculous and the impossible. The future is convoluted and impossible to decipher from the present; you can no more know what the future holds than you can know if the cat is dead or alive before opening the box. The only way to know the truth of what the future holds is to live through it, to collapse that wave length, solidify that superposition and make all the ‘could be’s into an is. I won't be made to feel guilty for comforting a dying man; won’t be made to feel guilty for promising to do what I fully intended upon doing. If I could not look after them, or myself, I would find a way to; find a way, or make one.

**You Were Never That Strong Kris.**

Well luckily, like everybody who lives, I have the capacity for change.

**Oh You’ll Change Alright. Not Like A Seed Changes Into a Tree; Like A Leaf Dies, Changes Into Rot, Changes Into Dirt, Feeds The Earth, But Becomes Nothing Itself. Your Place In This World Isn’t To Become Anything Of Worth. You Exist For The Growth Of Others.**

**A Growth Born Of Your Decay.**

I can’t know that. If I can’t know that, you can’t know that.

**Know What You Will. Know Nothing, If It Pleases. This Isn’t About Knowing Kris. This Is About Feeling. You Can Feel It Can’t You Kris? You’ve Felt It Since You Came Home.**

**There Is No Future For You. Your Dreams Are Stillborn. The Person The People Who Love You Want You To Be Is Dead. All That Remains In Her Place Is A Ghost. You Are Stagnant Water. You Are The Gangrenous Limb. You Are Weeds In The Garden. You Are-**

I am already three rings in before I am properly aware of what I’m doing. The cellphone is pressed to the side of my face with a shaking hand.  
“Kris?”  
“Asriel, I need to come home, like now.”  
“Krissy it’s like three in the morning.”  
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but I need to come home right now.”  
 **You Can Hear The Resentment In His Voice, Can’t You? He’s Sick Of You. Sick Of Having To Baby You. Sick Of Having To Care For Two Lives At Once.**  
“Okay, okay, I’ll be there in a bit, hold tight.”  
Go home. Go to bed. Wake up again, early. Talk to mum; talk to Asriel; talk to Dad.  
 **You Haven’t Talked To Your Father Since You Got Home. You Went And Fucked The People Who You Hurt Most Instead. What The Hell Kind Of Daughter Are You To Him? What The Hell Would He Want To Look After You Now? Not That He Can. We Both Know Where He Is. We Both Know Why You Haven’t Tried To Talk To Him.** Get help, get medication, get therapy, get hospitalised, do whatever it takes, make them stop, make them stop, make them sto- **This Is Getting Tiresome. How Many Times Do We Have To Tell You It Never Ends? We Never Go Away Kris. We’re Terminal. You Know What Terminal Means Right Kris? It Means Until The End Of The Line. Luckily, We’ve Got a Feeling That’s Sooner For You Than Most People.** I’m not going anywhere you dumb motherfucker. I’ll keep living to spite you. I’ll power myself with whatever it takes, you don’t get to wi- **Who Are You Arguing With Kris? We’re Just Your Own Thoughts. We’re Just Ghosts In Your Brain. We’re All In Your Head, Kiddo. You’ve Gotta Remember They’re Here For You, Loser. He’d Wait Forever For You Kris. Some Many People Giving Up So Much To Deal With The Runt Of The Litter.** Shut Up. Stop doing that. Shut the fuck up. Stop. Stop. Stop. **Ghosts. Ghosts In The Car. Ghosts In The Kitchen. Ghosts In The Mansion. Ghosts In The Firelight. Ghosts In The Flower Shop. Everyone’s So Tired. Everyone’s So Lost. Almost Not Even There; Almost Transparent. Nothing Left But Their Ghosts.**

Into the car. I bundled into the car. I bundled into the car like I was being hunted. Like I was being hunted like a rabbit. Being hunted like a rabbit with three lame legs. Three lame legs and tattered ears. Bundled into the car, with Asriel, who could only watch my wild eyed terror with deep concern and his own mounting fear.  
“What is it Kris?”  
“Just get us home, Asriel, please, just get us home.”  
“Kris slow down c’mon.”  
“I said get us home, Asriel, get us fucking home.”  
His face grew steely with anger, his endless patience running thin, his smiling mask nowhere to be seen. A ghost is in the seat beside me; the ghost of a brother who loved me, who had high hopes for me. A ghost is in the seat where I sit; the ghost of someone who could’ve done better, could’ve lived a happy life, could’ve given everyone she loved their own safe place. A ghost living in her old skin, unable to break free of her moorings, unable to slip free of the dream. I broke the silence like a hammer thrown against a mirror.  
“Is dad dead?”  
“What?”  
“Did dad die while I gone.”  
“What? Why would you ask that?”  
“The trash didn’t smell of flowers at mum’s. I didn’t see any flowers at Susie’s. Their back garden is overgrown with weeds; he’d always go around to garden so he’d have an excuse to talk to Seb. There’s no sign of him. We drove by Flower King and the light was off upstairs, and I know he sleeps with the light on because he’s still afraid of the dark. Is dad dead?”  
Asriel was shaking his head in disbelief as we came back into town, and when we reached Flower King he pulled up outside, braking hard. He got out like the car was about to explode, and knocked on the door like a man desperate for shelter. Waiting for the door to open. Waiting. Waiting too long; Dad wouldn’t leave anyone waiting this long. Waiting too lo-

Dad came to the door, rubbing his eyes, in his nightgown and sleeping cap. He yawned deeply as Asriel spoke syllables I could not hear from the car, and when the yawn ended his expression was one of concern. He looked to me in the car with that same expression. There were tears in my eyes. My heart felt like it was on fire, and I realised it was beating so hard I could feel it in my fingers. I got out of the car slowly, and once I was out, I moved with terrified haste into the arms of my father. He held me tight, as tight as I needed, but still not tight enough. It felt in that moment like nothing would ever be enough again. In that moment. Then that moment passed. My heart, and my breathing began to slow. The burning in my chest, and in my face, began to cool. I knew where I was again, who I was again. Why wouldn’t they tell me if dad died? What a stupid thing to think, so obviously stupid in hindsight. At the time was a different matter; at the time I was certain. At the time I felt like all good things in my life had died, and all that remained was ghosts, and that my father had not even been so good as to be a ghost for me. I felt abandoned. I felt alone. Why did I feel that way? I could not say. I cannot say. I did not think it was true; I knew, in my conscious mind, it was false. Yet lying in that bed with Susie and Ralsei, driving in that car with Asriel, even with all evidence to the contrary, that is how I felt, inescapably. Only in my father’s arms did the feeling begin to leave me; only when in the grip of my childhood did I feel truly safe.  
“I mean as you can probably tell, I’m obviously not dead Krissy,” dad muttered to the top of my head, trying his best to give a half-chuckle, to laugh off the absurdity of the thing. Asriel was not so quick to comfort.  
“Kris, seriously, what the fuck. Why wouldn’t we tell you? Do you really not trust us to tell you stuff like that? Do you really think telling you dad died wouldn’t be top fucking priority?” His voice was a furious thunder, and I could only sob deeply, and through those sobs try my best to apologise. I heard the footsteps moving away, and I heard the car door slam, and I heard the car pull away. I remained in my father’s embrace. Sometime after the sobs ended, and my father and I were left in the summer night, silent.  
“Is my old bed still here?” I asked quietly into my father’s heaving chest.  
“Yeah, I’ve been using it. I’ll get the camper out, you can stay here tonight.”  
“Thanks dad.”  
“It’s okay Krissy.”


	9. Well That Was Stupid Of You.

Fuck off.

The sun rose early, as is to be expected of the summer, and it woke me up. Not much natural light reached the second floor of Flower King; the windows were small and frosted, and the warm loving light came through like the gaze of creation upon the shame of man. Dad lay snoring opposite me on the camper bed, and his resonant breathing and the slight light were altogether too much for a fitful sort like me. I checked my phone and found that it was still the time of day no sane or reasonable human should have to be awake at. Cautiously, I tiptoed over to where Dad lay, and gently lay across his cavernous ribcage, holding him tight. Sleepily, his leonid paw came across my shoulder, and squeezed me tighter.  
“Hey Dad?”  
“Yeah Krissy?” He murmured, half awake and half-speaking.  
“I’m going to head out now. You can have the bed back if you’d like.”  
“Sweet to tell me Krissy but I think I’m just gonna…”  
His voice slipped away, and in its place came those same resonant snores. I couldn’t help but smile, and giving him one final squeeze, I tried my best to gently slip out from under his titanic forearm. With the benefit of knowing what the world knew of my father I looked over him again, and took in all that I did not even think of when I was a child, his child. His jaw could hold my entire head in its capacity, and his teeth (which I could only remember in a smile when called to mind) were visible in his half-slung mouth, and I saw that though they carried only kindness, they were vicious in their raw aspect. Sharp and suited for the tearing of meat (flesh?) and the snapping of bone. Caprine though many of my father’s features were I saw now the lion that the world saw; his full and well-groomed mane (crown of the world’s king!), his bulging biceps (strength of all that live, microcosmic!), his massive frame (large enough to carry the globe ‘cross shoulders and the moon slung ‘neath arm!). My father was a terrifying creature who managed to obscure that fact with kindness and love, so much so that all the horror he might inspire melted into comfort, and the sense that his body was unto itself a sanctuary. Looking at him I almost became convinced he would live forever, that the reason my anxieties were foolish was because the beast before me was immortal, so fearsome as to make the grim reaper stay his blade for fear of reprisal. But that wasn’t healthy either; to deify my father would only make it worse when he did eventually pass away. For all the tall tales told of my father, for all the strength in his form, he was just a man. A mortal creature that would someday be claimed by time’s arrow. Alexandrian has he may be, in deed and legend, Alexander too died (and died younger than my father by far), and proved for posterity that the greatness of a man does not save him. I would have to be prepared for that final call; the loss of that which I found the most comfort in; the knowledge that may father was gone and was never coming back. Yet that fear needn’t consume me, and to be afraid of it before the time came was simply a failure to appreciate the present for what it was. I kissed my father on the forehead, gentle as the wind, and took off to once more present myself in contrition.  
The walk to Susie’s hadn’t gotten shorter as my legs had grown longer, almost as if the distance itself remained constant as a method of punishing me for my cowardice (or else, of making me work for my reward). So on that long walk, without music or conversation for companion, my thoughts turned to what it meant to get better. It’s easy when thinking about getting better, from within or without, to think about it as a series of bridges; every time you reach the bridge, you have to cross it, no matter how rickety or scary it might seem to do so. You have to make the right choice every day, but knowing what the right choice is should be easy; it should be clear what the healthy thing to do is. Unluckily, unkindly, there is no clear right choice, not from within. It’s pretty clear that spending all day in bed is the wrong choice; but if getting out of bed and trying to force myself to meet the expectations of the world makes me even more miserable, how does that not at least feel like the wrong choice? It feels almost impossible to think in the long term. Choices aren’t made based on how they’ll make me feel in a month, they’re made based on how I feel now, and most days, I feel like shit. Getting better isn’t crossing a bridge; it’s swimming upstream. It’s making the right choice every day, even though it gets more and more exhausting, and it feels pointless to begin with, because it’s hard to believe that there’s even such a thing as ‘getting better’. How do you keep believing that you’re doing the right thing when you wake up every day feeling worse than the day before? How do you understand, viscerally understand, that what you’re doing is for the best when all you feel is tired? I don’t have the answers. I don’t think there is an answer. The only recourse is to keep swimming upstream, keep resisting the current, because you know that no matter how exhausting moving against the river is, wherever the river’s going to carry you can only be worse. So getting better is waking up every day and asking yourself; what’s it going to be, bad or worse?

Susie was already on the porch by the time I arrived. She didn’t look angry. She looked sad. She looked disappointed. She looked at me with such hurt that my mind screamed in agony to see it. My heart hurt in my chest, and I could only imagine from that how I’d made her feel.  
“You weren’t there last night,” she said from clenched teeth, her tone only carrying the slightest quaver to betray how she felt.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“You can’t keep doing this to me Kris.”  
“I know.”  
“I can’t keep putting up with this.”  
“I know, I’m sorry.”  
“...Are you gonna come sit down?”  
I nodded, and did as I was bid, sitting down next to her, close as I dared. Her eyes didn’t leave me. They held onto me like her hand, desperate and gripping, not wishing to let go of me ever again. I screwed up my courage and met her eyes, felt all that she wanted me to feel, felt the pain and the love and the fear. Felt what she had felt when she woke up the day after getting me back, only to find that I was gone again. Felt that immeasurable sense of loss, the painful reopening of old scars, scurvy of the soul.  
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could choke out, all I could think to say. Words alone could not fix the problem, could not close those freshly bleeding scars, could not sew shut the open wound.  
“Just, if you need to go somewhere, I understand, but you have to tell me okay? You can’t just leave me like that. You aren’t allowed to make me feel that way again. I can’t let you and you shouldn’t let yourself.”  
I could do nothing but hold her tightly, bury myself against her, feel her arms wrap around me, powerful and loving and saying all the things she couldn’t quite say herself. She was already grappling with the idea of losing the one person she had spent her whole life trusting to look after her; how fucking dare I make her grapple with the idea of losing me again too? Guilt wracked my body like stormy winds at sea, and soon after sobs wracked me too, and I knew I could do nothing to let her know the depths of my guilt, and though inside me voices screamed (Kill yourself coward! Cut yourself open! Punishment and penitence for the prodigal son!) listening to them would only serve to hurt her more. So we sat there, in dawn’s early light, and I shed tears in place of blood, only wishing a pound of my flesh could pay the price, and let her know my sincerity through my sorrow, however self-pitying and pointless it felt. Eventually there were no more tears to shed, and I could only rest against her heaving chest, her bosom the only pillow I would ever wish to rest my head upon.  
“I can’t live without you,” I choked out through a hoarse, well-used throat. I received nothing but a tightening grip about me in response, a reply that through body language let me know that she understood, and that she knew I was telling the truth. We rested, and the rustling of the leaves beyond the treeline took on a new aspect; not whispers of the chorus to mock my failure, nor the fleeing of ghosts into the wilderness. Joyous applause, the world celebrating such a beautiful tragedy unfolding before its hungry eyes. My life could not, would not amount to nothing more than a performance for the emotional gratification of a silent audience, and yet from my position at my queen’s breast, I could think of no way to deny them it.

“So what happened?”  
“I had a panic attack. A pretty bad one. I was convinced my dad was dead.”  
“Fucking hell.”  
“Yeah. I called Asriel to come pick me up and ‘confronted’ him in the car about it. He’s pretty pissed with me for calling him out of bed to accuse him of not thinking to tell me dad died. I’m going to have to go home and tell him I’m sorry later.”  
“That doesn’t sound like my idea of fun.”  
“No, mine neither.”  
She kissed my head, ruffled my hair, held me close and reassuring, tried her best to make me feel better, my penance complete and affection and comfort returned. The sun rose over the treeline like a peeping tom spying our love over the fence. Let it watch; let it see there is joy in my life, even as it coincides with my collapse. Let the sun, and the sun alone if necessary, record that I lived a life which had happiness despite the horror and hardship that haunted my diseased core. How long we sat there I could not say, but eventually Ralsei came out onto the porch, his skirt a mess and his thigh-highs slipped to his ankle, simply becoming socks of excessive cuff. He was a sight; a wonderful sight, a joyous sight, a ridiculous sight, a sight for sore eyes and sore hearts alike. We beckoned him over and he sat in my lap, rested against my breast as I against Susie’s. We sat there for a while, drawing power from each other and the sun, and I tried my best to steel myself for the day ahead of me. What is often not said about facing the day is how disconcerting it can be to have the day stare back at you with cold, hateful eyes. Yet even with that baleful gaze upon me, the loving gaze of my queen, my prince, and the sun did what they could to empower, embolden and inspire me. It is not right to depend on others for your happiness; but it is not wrong to take the strength necessary to make yourself happy and whole once more from them. Not a crutch, but a meal, filling and warm, to see oneself through the day, into the glorious future we long to embrace.

I tore myself from them when I felt strong enough to. Said my farewells; told them I’d be home, and that I loved them, and then took off walking, to face my final judgement before I might knock once more upon the gates of the Eden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Chapter 10 will be finished before the end of next week.


	10. Things Can’t Go Back To How They Were.

They don’t have to. They can be better. I can make them better.

The walk was arduous once more, and once more my thoughts began to wander to strange places, unable to remain occupied simply with the beauty of the trees in full colour and the flowers in bloom. Nature did not create itself for me, and its efforts therefore did not interest me; it preened for preenings sake, or else for the sake of procreation, and I did not wish to give such salacious narcissism any credit. I thought about where I came from, and the person I had come to be. I never knew my biological parents, I never really cared to. I don’t know how I came into the care of my mum and dad, and I had been too afraid to ask. I still am, I suppose. It feels like to acknowledge I am not bound by blood to the family would break some unspoken contract, would only further solidify, outside my hornless head and furless flesh, that I was not the true daughter of the king of flowers, was not deserving of the love of the prince of classics, did not deserve the forgiveness of the queen of tutors. I felt a part of the family; I felt closer to my family than I felt to most anyone, felt that the kinship we shared transcended the bonds of birth. Yet always there was the niggling doubt; the feeling of not meeting expectations, the feeling of not being great enough to match the natural born son. The feeling of being nothing more than the idiot pet, the exotic relic of a world passed saturated with sentimentality. It is an illogical thing, and is hard to describe, the feeling of “My family loves me, and I know this, but do they really?”. My family would do anything for me, but how much could I bear to ask for? How much would I fear to take before their unconditional love ran out, and I was cast out from the only world I had ever found true comfort in? How much of a failure could I admit to being?

This is the thinking that stopped me from getting help. This is the thinking that kept me trapped in the prison that university became. It was foolishness, plain and simple, but not a foolishness I could easily shake. It made a home in my heart long ago, nestled between the chambers and whispering obscenities with every heartbeat, and when it felt my doubts begin to surface it emboldened, metastasized, spread from heart, to lungs, liver, spine (avoiding the brain, logical analysis poisonous to it). That foolishness had conquered my body from me, and there was now no choice but to conquer it back. To slash through vines of idiocy and branches of self-loathing to find the answer, clouded as the air of my body was with the black flies that fed upon my slow decay. No more, never again, not for me. Only so many of my problems could be solved with a good cry, an apology, and a hug. Only so much of me could be fixed with love and companionship. If I was ever to prosper, ever to become the person I dreamed of being, it would take self-sufficiency. It would take receiving help from someone who knows what they’re doing. It would take admitting to what was wrong with me, to myself, to my mother, to my family and loved ones, and to take whatever steps were necessary to fix that inborn illness. I didn’t want to go back to how things were because how things were was fearful, was paralysing, was a form of joyful wallowing that lived in a fragile peace with my future. That peace was shattered, and needed to remain shattered, the shards made into spears with which to kill the past. I have problems. I have lots and lots of problems. Problems don’t get better by ignoring them, running from them, painting over them.

Problems get better with the confrontation I so feared

I was here again. No ghosts. No car to hide in, save those in the driveway. A brown door with a heart in the window to welcome me inside. Home. My home. The place where I had watched the basement full of shining mushrooms shine with the love and care my father poured into them, a constellation built just for me. The place where I had sobbed deeply into pillows as my love and self were condemned. The place where I learned how to bake my first pie. The place where my parents argued nightly for a year, and Asriel held me throughout the sleepless nights the yelling caused. The place of my earliest memories, the place of my worst memories, the place of my happiest memories. Home, in its purest sense, behind a brown wooden door that the wind and rain caused to peel and crack, and that my mother refused to have replaced or fixed, because the damage is what gave the door character, and what reminded us that no matter how hurt we were, we could always come home. I checked the time on my phone. Asriel and mum should both be home right now. There was a threat to be reckoned with. My knuckles rapped on the door, bashing bashfully (is there any way to knock apologetically?). I waited patiently, and as I waited I noticed my gaze was downcast. Though I did not wish to meet them staring at my feet, I felt paralysed, staring at my feet like my pumps might give some kind of answer (they were unmercifully, unkindly silent). The door opened, and I saw the slender, clawed toes of my brother.  
“Hey Kris,” he said, his tone level. I didn’t like. He didn’t sound happy to see me.  
“Hey.”  
“What’s up?”  
“I want to get better.”  
“What?”  
“I’m sorry for my panic attack, and I want to get better. I don’t want to have to keep messing up and apologising. I want to get better.”  
“...It’s okay Kris.”  
“It’s not okay. I’m sorry, and I don’t want to have to say sorry again.”  
My brother hugged me. I couldn’t hug him back. I couldn’t take my eyes off my goddamn feet, even obscured as they were by my brother’s tan slacks (he was just wearing those around the house? God what a fucking dork). I felt the hug. I felt the forgiveness. I felt the comfort. It felt good, but feeling good wasn’t enough anymore. It wasn’t enough just to feel better, I had to be better. I had to do better. I had to get better. I looked up and saw his face, and he wasn’t smiling, but there was an understanding to it. There was a forgiveness that knew what it was forgiving, not just accepting an apology rendered. I finally could take control of my arms again, hacking at the roots of the foolishness and freeing them from their binding. I wrapped them around my brother, buried my head into his chest, accepted that comfort with the caveat that came with it, the caveat I had self-imposed and that Asriel had accepted.

‘My love is unconditional, and I will always take care of you, but if you want anyone to love and care for you, you have to love and take care of yourself, too.’

We left that embrace slowly, both unsure of when was the right time to stop, both unwilling to leave it. I continued to screw my courage, continued to work away at the overgrown fool that cancered my body, and stepped past my brother into the house. My mother sat on the couch knitting, and looked up to me with a smile. I smiled back, as best I could, but even I could see the sadness emanating from it; it felt like it projected about a foot in front of me. She patted the seat next to her on the sofa gently, and found myself drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I sat down, eyes drawn naturally to the television, which was muted, the closed captions turned on so Asriel could still enjoy it without disturbing mum. Asriel settled in on the opposite end to mum, and I was nestled between them. There was a silence, but for the clacking of mum’s needles. There was a comfort, hanging over us like a blanket. I did not come here for silence. I did not come here for comfort. I came here to talk. Yet my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was struck dumb by the serenity of the moment. Like a deer in a grove, I locked eyes with it, tried not to move, tried not to disturb it. I found that even my breath became measured, careful, trying not to break the silence, trying to hold tight to the comfort. It could not stand; so the blade of my resolve came down upon the brush that blocked my airways, poured alcohol over the sap that stuck my tongue to its spot and set it alight, burning away the tumorous idiocy.  
“Mum, I’m not okay.”  
She didn’t look up from her work immediately. I didn’t resent her for that. It was good work. She was knitting a hat that was very obviously for Ralsei. It had ‘Prince of Darkness’ stitched into the brim. It was cute. He’d look cute in it.  
“What do you mean, baby?”  
“I think I might be seriously ill.”  
She looked up, concerned, and placed the back of her hand to my head, feeling for a fever.  
“What are your symptoms? Is it the hormones they’ve got you on? I’ve heard they can have bad side effects…” I lifted her hand away gently.  
“It’s not the hormones mum. I’ve been sick a long time. I think I might have been sick my whole life.”  
“Kris?”  
“There’s something wrong with my brain, mum. I don’t know what but something is seriously wrong. I need to talk to someone, someone who knows what it is. Someone who knows how I can be helped. I don’t want to keep living like this. I don’t want to keep failing. I don’t want to have to keep hurting people. I need you to book me an appointment with the doctor, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t do this by myself.”  
She’d watched me speak with gentle, understanding eyes, and her hand had migrated from my head to my own hand, which she squeezed sympathetically, and nodded silently. The silence returned, the comfort redoubled, the fear of disturbing it gone. There was hope now. An actual chance at improvement, rather than the guarantee of stagnation. The transformation was as sudden as it was mundane, and we returned to the clacking of needles and the muted television as quickly as we had left it. Somewhere in me, a turmoil manifested that this was just another form of avoiding the problem, but I smothered it, did not feed it. She had understood. She had not rejected me, or reassured me. She had understood, and she was going to help, and things were going to get better. There was no promise I would ever be fixed. There was no comfort that I was ever going to be complete, or perfect. There was no need for such things. It was enough to carry that sentiment with me, close to my heart, into the future, with all the hope and victory it implied and carried with it.

I was going to get better. I was capable of getting better. I was no ghost, no rotting corpse, no fertiliser. I had a future. I was a flower blooming, a newborn emerging clean and perfect into a new world. I was a soul unbound, and set free, no longer shackled by fear, guilt, hopelessness.

I am Kris Dreemur, and I am going to be happy most of the time some day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end. This is also probably the end of Growing Up Is Hard so. Thanks for being on this trip with me for the past three months. I'm sorry I kept you waiting. This series meant a lot to me, and was helpful in working through some of my own issues. I hope you liked it. If you did please comment to tell me what you think of the whole 25,000 odd words, because I desperately need the time I spent on it validated outside of just creating a work of art.


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